Page:Mistress Madcap (1937).pdf/87



HARITY nooded speechlessly.

A long silence ensued during which the traveler who had been the more jovial bit his finger nails and cast chagrined glances at his morose companion.

"Deuce take it, Hawtree!" he exclaimed, after a while. "Don't take it so bitterly. No one was exactly to blame!"

The man named Hawtree turned around and stared angrily.

"I told you even the trees had ears these days!" he thundered fiercely. "Yet you must needs give the enemy full details of our private affairs!"

The other man relapsed into silence at that and the rest of the journey was finished in absolute speechlessness upon the part of everyone, the girls hardly daring to breathe lest they bring the ire of their unpleasant companion upon their heads. They were more than relieved when they finally rumbled into the inn yard at Trenton and the others were deposited there.

Then the coach continued upon its way, out through the town along the banks of the lovely Delaware River that even the bleakness of December could not rob of